Out and About

GREAT FALLS – Alligator hunter and American reality TV star Troy Landry of the History Channel’s hit show “Swamp People” will make a guest appearance at a meet and greet at the Great Falls Rescue Squad Rodeo this summer.

A native of Louisiana, Landry grew up in the Atchafalaya Basin region of Pierre Parte.

He is a third-generation member of his family to live in the area and one of a group of local people who hunt American alligators.

Clay Dyer started fishing at age 5 and became a professional angler at the age of 15. He’s fished in more than 200 bass tournaments and won about 20 of them. He enjoys driving his bass boat at full throttle and has a great love for football, serving as assistant football coach for Hamilton High School in Alabama.

Michele Roberts
For The Lancaster News
University of South Carolina Lancaster soccer coach Martin Cantu saw a combination of things in Lancaster that prompted him to create Carolina United Soccer Academy, a soccer league designed to include kids from all walks of life in the community.

From release
On Sept. 28, the Lancaster District AME Zion churches conducted the ninth annual Youth Oratorical Expose with 17 participants.
The purpose of this program is to promote youth development in research and speech. Each contestant is given three topics to choose to research and is judged on his or her research ability, speech content, organization, delivery and overall effectiveness of presentation.

This summer, 860 children participated in the “Dig Into Reading,” summer reading program at the Lancaster County Main Branch and Kershaw County libraries, said Brenda Parker, children’s librarian for the Lancaster County Library.

“The summer reading program is fun for kids because taking home prizes and taking home books is fun. You get to be in the middle of all these books, and I love that. I love books, and books are fun,” said Parker, known in Lancaster as “Ms. Brenda.”

Susan Gainey wants to do what she can to make life a little easier for chemotherapy patients.

For the last year, Gainey, who works with Hospice Care of Tri-County, has hosted Chemo with Style, a beauty and fashion event for women going through chemotherapy. The most recent of these events was held Tuesday, July 16 at The Springs House, 201 W. Gay St.

It looks almost like a scene from a science fiction movie. Lines of sleek, white motorless planes speckle a field near the border of Lancaster and Kershaw counties. Anxious pilots wait as an airplane soars overhead, towing one of the machines through the sky.

This is the 18-Meter National Championship gliding competition, an event that gathers the best glider pilots in the U.S. and Canada to compete in a series of challenges.

From release
Gary Parsons was elected potentate of the Hejaz Shriners at the annual election held Saturday, Jan. 5.
Hejaz has 4,851 members and the Shrine Center is located on Ranch Road in Mauldin, which also hosts an 18-hole championship golf course on about 300 acres.

Parsons was born in Georgetown and educated in the Georgetown school system where he graduated from Winya High School in 1956.

After serving in the U.S. Army, Parsons moved to Lancaster, where he still resides today.